Rebound
by Tolakasa
Summary: AU. Dean understood all too well. Spoilers for 2.17, Heart.


**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Warnings:** Spoilers for 2.17 "Heart"

* * *

**Rebound**

They drove north, along the coastline, until Dean couldn't keep his eyes open another mile. It would have been easier if Sam had talked to him, but Sam was all hunched in on himself, lost in his thoughts, and Dean knew better than to force it.

Sam went into the room and collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling in that distant way he had the weeks after Jessica, not even bothering to draw salt lines, even though it was his turn.

Dean didn't know what to say, so he drew the lines at the windows and door, and when he finished and Sam was still in the exact same spot, still staring at the ceiling, he fell back onto habit. "You okay, Sammy?"

A spark of anger flashed in Sam's eyes at the nickname, but he replied, mildly enough, "I will be."

"It just takes time," Dean began. He meant it to be reassuring.

Sam finally looked at him, his eyes hard. "What the fuck do you know about it, Dean?" he snarled. "You've never had to do this before and it wouldn't have bothered you if you had!"

The words slammed into Dean like a load of rock salt. "You're right," he snapped back. "I wouldn't know anything about it. I forgot that Sam Winchester's got a monopoly on losing people. Sorry."

"Quit being an ass."

"Funny. I was about to say the same thing to you."

"Dammit, Dean, for once in your life, _shut the fuck up!_" He hurled the nearest free object at Dean. Luckily, it was just a pillow.

That did it. "Fine," Dean snarled, grabbing a gun and his wallet. "Fuck you."

He slammed the door behind him with as much force as one of these crappy motel doors would slam—and then he leaned against it, trying to choke back tears, trying not to think of Alicia.

He hadn't loved her. Not any more than Sam had loved Madison. She'd been a step in healing after Cassie had—well, after Cassie.

Didn't make it hurt less.

At least Sam had the comfort of knowing Madison was going to kill people, whether she wanted to or not, that her death was _necessary_. Alicia—

_"Why are you asking me to do this?"_

_"Because you're a good friend, Dean Winchester, and because you'll make sure I won't come back."_

_He stared at the knife in his hand—her knife, not his, a gold-hilted, __monogrammed, overgrown excuse for a __kitchen knife, the only thing she had left of a family torn away from her by a freak accident. "This isn't going to make you happy," he said softly. "This is going to kill you. And I—"_

_Her hand closed over his. "Because," she added, wiping the tears out of his eyes with her free hand, "you understand what losing everything does to you."_

Dean drove straight to the nearest beach, stopping only for a six-pack and more specific directions. He sat on the hood of the Impala, _not_ drinking—the beer had been an excuse to ask for directions, more than anything else—twisting his amulet and watching waves crash onto the rocks under the nearly-full moon. He seldom drank when he thought about Alicia. Cassie, now, Cassie had driven him to drink more nights than he cared to remember, but not Alicia.

Alicia had been everything he _didn't_ look for in a woman, quiet and innocent and sad, and he hadn't even realized he was looking for something that Cassie wasn't until Alicia plopped herself into his booth at a diner and asked, "Good hunting?" She'd pulled him out of the depressive funk that he'd been in after Cassie, provided him that precious little bit of distraction to kick him back into his old self; for the first time in weeks he'd been able to push Cassie to the back of his mind and just be himself again.

_"Do I know you?"_

_"Not yet," she said, with an innocent little smile that had captivated him immediately. "Have a job, or just passing through?"_

_"On my way to one."_

_"Good."_

She'd loved watching the ocean. They'd spent—Christ, had it only been two nights?—on the beach near Galveston, watching the waves in between sessions in the back seat of the Impala.

Just two. It had seemed like so much longer.

_"The beach would be more romantic."_

_"Sand in your ass isn't romantic. Trust me."_

_"Voice of experience?"_

_"Voice of raising a little brother who could get sand into the _weirdest_ damn spots."_

_She gave him that grin that managed to be both innocent and devilish. "You did this kind of thing for your little brother?"_

_"I thought you were supposed to be innocent," he'd mock-snarled, and she'd grinned and kissed him again._

Inevitably, his memories wandered away from the pleasant and more into the ones that haunted his dreams, and he resorted to the beer, hoping to dull the edges and make them comfortably fuzzy again. In his nightmares—Sam wasn't the only one who had them, it was just that Dean's didn't tell the future—he still felt the knife go in, felt the muscles clench around the blade, heard her gasp of pain, felt her crumple in his arms, held her as she bled out.

She hadn't cried. He had. She'd spent her final minutes trying to make _him_ feel better.

_"Don't make me do this."_

_"I can't _make_ you do anything, Dean. Walk away. I won't hold it against you."_

She never told him why it had to be a knife, why it had to be him, why she couldn't just take one of the guns in the trunk and use it herself. He'd offered to show her how to use them. After all, if she wanted to die that much, it wasn't Dean's place to stand in her way—offer a token resistance, maybe, try to talk her out of it, but he knew better than anyone that sometimes the pain was just too much. But she'd just shaken her head and given him that sad little smile and asked him again, and for some reason, he just couldn't turn her down.

He looked down at his amulet. He'd told Dad he found it in an antique shop in Arkansas. Sam had never asked about it.

It had been the only thing, besides that knife, that Alicia had left of her family, a charm they'd kept for generations.

It was his payment for helping her. For being there. For putting a knife into her and burning the body. She'd insisted that he take it; had put it around his neck before—

"Fuck you," he whispered, not sure if he was talking to Alicia or to himself, and hurled the empty beer bottle into the surf.

* * *

Sammy was asleep when Dean let himself back into the motel room. By the state of the nightstand, getting there had involved booze. 

Great. Twice in three months Sam had gotten totally wasted. It had happened what, once in all the years before? Dean was turning into a _great_ influence on his little brother. He could just imagine what Dad would say.

The springs creaked atrociously as he collapsed onto the bed; Sam jerked awake. Not wasted, then. Just dulled enough to sleep. Sam was turning into Dad more every day. "Dean?" he asked, more than a little groggily.

"Yeah, Sammy. It's me."

"Thought maybe you ran away."

"Thought about it."

Sam sat up. "Dean, I—the stuff I said, I didn't—"

Dean didn't look at his brother. "Sam, I'm going to say this once," he interrupted, "and then I'm never going to mention it again, and you're not going to nag me to talk or hug or any of that other touchy-feely bullshit you like so much. Clear?"

"Dean, I just want to apologize—"

Dean stood up. Turned to face his little brother. "Her name was Alicia," he said quietly, fighting to keep his voice even, "and she asked me to."

He went into the bathroom before Sam could ask the questions he knew were coming, and used the shower to camouflage his tears.

_**the end**_


End file.
